Monday, June 24, 2013

After much debate, I scheduled an induction for AC for the 20th and had to check in the night before at 7pm. It allowed all of my family to plan and drive up and get Fenn situated. Here is our last picture as a family of 3. He was not sad about is leaving since all his favorite ladies (Mom, Aunt CC, and Nonie) were here.

Bye Bye Bump! I was almost sad to say goodbye to it, until I remembered how it would feel to wear real clothes again, and sleep, and be able to walk and bend over easily! haNothing about this labor was similar to Fenn's birth and that really shocked me. I guess I had not thought too much about it but i just assumed it would be the same!

And as it turns out, I was already in labor when I got there. Dilated to a 4 and contractions every 3 minutes or so. I was not in any unusual pain since I had lots of contractions throughout this pregnancy, and was surprised to hear that. They decided to call my doctor and hold off on pitocin until talk to him, and he advised to wait, and for me to go ahead and get epidural since I was progressing quickly and they would start pitocin when he arrived. ( I thought the fact that he was going to come to the hospital right away, instead of when I was ready to push was VERY nice. (My previous OB made me sit and wait 20 minutes before he arrived for pushing and that was quite painful.)

SO I got the epidural, and I was scared since I was not in pain yet! With Fenn I had back labor and was in pain and not scared at all for that epidural. Unfortunately, the girl who did mine did not do a great job with her aim and I ended up only numb on one side of my body, which was crazy, and as my labor progressed, I was definitely feeling lots of pain on the side was not numb. In retrospect, I knew when she put it in it was too much to the right, but I assumed she would know better than me and didn't speak up. Lesson learned.

I had excellent nurses this time that were fun to be around and distracted me when I needed it! Things went by rather quickly and when it as time to push, not to be too graphic but she was like a freight train and there was not stopping that! I could not believe the pressure, and how much of all of that I could feel. I had a specialist this time incase I had another big baby and he had some different methods for getting her out so that we could minimize the damage. All in all I think he did a great job. ( His name is Dr. Brown at Heritage Women's if you are shopping for an OB in Nashville). I forgot to mention that I was in enough pain to think I was dying, they came in and pumped that epidural and I was then able to come back down to earth and focus and so 10 minutes of pushing and there she was.

We were all debating her weight as she came out, and no one guessed big enough!

She was 9 lbs 3 oz.

20" Long

2:55 am

and much to our surprise she had a head full of hair!! and my crazy pinky toes! I really could not get over her looks! I just never pictured a baby of mine with so much dark hair and dark skin! I also had lots of moments of OMG!! I am about to have a baby. This is Crazy!

and.. at the risk of TMI I will say that just because she was my 2nd big baby did not mean that was any less painful! I had a ROUGH next 24 hours and was terrified I was gonna be like that for months like I was with Fenn but after a few days things slowly began to improve and my mental state was MUCH better when I realized I was gonna be OK. I did not retain ANY fluid this time, and I was swollen for 2 weeks after having Fenn so that is good. I have TONS of leftovers though! Yikes! I will be soon showing pics of the leftover action and how long that takes to remedy. For now I am trying to learn how to be a mom to 2, and how to manage my very high maintenance princessa.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

I have been meaning to write this forever and kept forgetting but I feel like the 2 experiences were so different it was worth noting.1. The 2nd time around went by MUCH faster. MUCH. And I am thankful for that as I am not a person who loves being pregnant. 2. This time I had terrible morning sickness in the 1st trimester. I attribute that to having a girl this time but who knows.3. I showed much sooner, but never got as big as I did with Fenn, and my shape was cuter this time around. Not sure if that is the difference between a boy and girl bump, or just life. With 1st pregnancy I had lots of time to lie around, and this time that was certainly not the case. I was all over the place with my boy and up and down in the floor with him and carrying him which I think is like working out.4. Less Symptomatic : Lots of things that I had the 1st time around, like raging emotional crying jags and painful round ligament pains did not happen this time.Maybe it was less of a shock to my body since I had done it before? I also had bad leg cramps at night with Peebs and just all sorts of random issues. This time I was basically normal until about 20 weeks when I started popping and having sleep issues.5. More anxious/appreciative.. The 1st time around I did not know the love of a parent/child and now that I do, It made me so much more nervous for a healthy baby and so much more excited to have her. I can not wait to have a squishy baby again, and do all that baby stuff, and just see who she is and what she is like because Fenn has blown me away with what he is like.. I am so curious what a girl will be like.6. Less nervous about so many parenting things, like sleep training, breast feeding, if the baby gets sick. In fact I am super pumped about the experience I have now and learning from it on the 2nd time around.35 Weeks with Anna Clarke

31 Weeks with Fenn

7. Pictures.. looking back at all peebs baby pictures makes me regret letting him wear so many tacky things, especially pajamas. At the time I didn't think it mattered since no one saw outside of home, but now I realize that is when lots of pictures are taken and frozen in time forever are the bad outfit choices. HA. I also changed up how I backup all of my pictures, notes and videos as I lost some of that from peebs days.8. Oh and I forgot to mention that all my clothes from the 1st time around were basically useless this time, even though I was pregnant at almost the same time. Either things were outdated or just did not fit the new shape I had with this pregnancy. I also made more of an effort to less tired and cranky this time around. I shopped smarted this time for outfits and skipped lots of things like a pregnancy pillow.9. Sick! Having a child already means germs frequenting the house. I am rarely ever sick in my normal life because I have a pretty healthy immune system, and was never sick when I was pregnant with Fenn, but this pregnancy I have had 4 colds! Not fun!So that is that. Today is my last day of this pregnancy as I am going in at 7pm to get induced. I am so ready to have this baby and snuggle her up, and be able to move around again and keep up with my precious son. I can barely hold or snuggle him with this big belly ( not that that would stop him from pouncing on it). After 3 years of peebs, I now know what to expect, which makes having a baby so much more exciting cause I know all the fun things in store.We shall see in a few weeks if I can handle 2 kids all day every day! ha

Friday, June 14, 2013

This whole post is dedicated to Potty Training because it was such a mystery to me before we started and I always wanted to hear stories from others who did it, and I want to be able to remember this in the future for our other children. So skip this if you are gonna be annoyed or offended by potty talk and pictures!

Probably 2 important points to make :

1.) I would have never started if CB had not encouraged me. I didn't think he was "ready".

2.) It was not near as scary and horrible as I had pictured. I don't know if it was just perfect timing or maybe Fenn was giving me a break because he is so difficult in other areas or maybe God was doing me a solid? Anyway, my point is try to be open minded because you might be surprised!

I kept a very detailed diary of all this in Evernote but the highlights are this:

He has been TT in potty every night before bed with his daddy since December 2nd. Lula suggested to me that we start that because" little boys do what their daddy do". One day I will do a vlog and interview her on potty training because her take on it was hilarious. Anyway, she was right , it worked.

I bribed him with chocolate to go #2. Cadburry eggs to be exact which was both brilliant and stupid. Brilliant in that it worked and stupid in that they are a seasonal candy that I didn't stock up on! M&Ms were for successful TT. Eventually praise was enough and he stopped asking for a treat, except every now and then.

One of his therapists suggested to put him on the toilet backwards so that he would not be distracted by falling in and it worked like a charm! I highly recommend this to other mommas.

Tacky Character underwears. Right of passage right? well it would help if he knew who the dang characters were! So think about that ahead of time before starting. Also? Underwears are expensive, and in the beginning you need like a million pair for all the accidents! Costco has the best buy ( 8 pairs for $8) .

Pull-ups are a waste of time. They do not help in PT in my opinion. He has been wearing them for a year because he was too big to wear normal diapers, but when it was PT time, I think you gotta go all in and either be naked or in unders so they can see what it feels like to be wet. Also, I think pull up's kind of send a silent message about your expectations, because when we stopped using them at naptime and night time, he stopped peeing his pants.

I put him in underwear most every day all day except at naptime and night time. Then one day about 3 weeks into it at bedtime he told me " no diaper momma, underwear's" and I told him that means you can't TT unless you get up and go to the potty, and that was that. So he for about 2 weeks now has been in unders at night and naptime, without problems except for 3 accidents that were all back to back. No idea why, and I never made any commentary I just changed him and put him back to bed. He often times wakes up at 1am hollering to me that he needs to TT potty

I made stickers for him to wear when we are out and about or he went to school that said " I AM WEARING UNDERWEAR" because I found it helpful if others knew what to expect as well.

Initially I would ask him every hour to go TT and he would be uninterested unless I said " Wanna go TT potty and get some M&Ms" and he would run off and go. Once that got started, I did not have to ask him much but would just take him in there before we left to go somewhere or something like that, and after that I stopped talking about it at all because he seemed to do much worse when I hounded him, but when I acted like I didn't care, he was very good at taking himself. He can now go much longer than 1 hour at a time.

We only drink liquids with meals and I am sure that helps.

Oh and we never used a plastic potty, just started out on the big potty with a stool. not sure that mattered at all but it was a question I had when we started the process so thought I would notate.

I wrote all of that in April, and now in June he has made great progress. An accident here or there but never at night time, just when busy playing and I never say much about it. He rarely asks for potty treats anymore but if he does you better bet I will give them to him because I am nervous about regression when his sister arrives!

I have noticed that as time went on he can def hold it much longer and its not as " urgent" that we rush right away to the potty. He also rarely wakes up at night requesting to go anymore.

Funny thing about little boys is they can go ANYWHERE, and they will. He has "watered" many a parking lot, and also put on a show in the center of a public playground one day because he was so proud of going ( we poured on the praise) ha... and I am sure I should have been embarrassed but I was actually very proud and also laughing so hard I could barely walk to get to him to address the situation.

and yes, I posted pics of my cute toddler on the potty, and no I don't care if you think it is OK or not. Somebody somewhere always has an opinion about this stuff, but I am not interested in hearing it because this is my blog/child and "I do what I want"! #sorrynotsorry #toopregnanttosugarcoat

Thursday, June 13, 2013

I had a exciting little update planned for the blog today about all that and even put on full makeup and fixed my hair for the pictures... but then some lunatic lady rammed her car into mine in a parking lot and I cried/sweated all the effort away and now this is the best I got.

But, let's just take a minute to discuss this situation shall we?

There are 2 things in this picture worth noting. One is her HEINOUS outfit which speaks to her mental state IMO. The other is SHE IS PARKED IN A HANDICAP SPOT and NOT HANDICAPPED.

This has long been a pet peeve of mine because it says so much about the laziness and self centeredness of our society.

So, she backed out of her illegal parking spot ( FAST) without even looking in a parking lot full of children, didn't scratch her car, smashed mine up awesome and her 1st action?

Was to call whomever she was late meeting up with to let them know she would be late?!

She never said sorry or asked if I was OK since I am 9 mos pregnant.

In fact I am not sure she ever got off the phone the whole time. I know she never bothered to look before driving because there was no way to miss the fact that I was directly behind her.

So I asked her if she was handicapped and she was all OFFENDED that I would ask such a thing because " everyone does it, she was just dropping off her child etc" she went on and on about that little tidbit.

What I can't understand is , HOW can someone with no physical problems justify taking a space right next to any building when someone who has a broken leg or a mom with 3 kids to wrangle or me who is 9 months pregnant and can barely walk, leaves those spaces open for people who REALLY need them? and then not even be embarrassed/ashamed at the selfishness when called on it?

I am pretty enraged if you can't tell! But I am super thankful that no children were hit because they are always walking behind parked cars on their way into school.

and... Onto the pregnancy situation:

Monday Doctor appointment was encouraging! He said I was READY! dilated to a 2 , effaced and baby way down. He said he expects me to have a short quick labor to not bother timing contractions, that if I thought I was in labor head to the hospital. I hope he is right!

We had an ultrasound to check the size of the baby and she is 8lbs and 8oz and LONG... she seems super long to me based on the shape of my belly and watching it move when she does. She was measuring about 2 weeks ahead of schedule and has legs so long they are > 95%! All in all she looked pretty juicy to me and I thought it was perfect because she was neither TOO big or too skinny. I love a good fat baby so I hope she has some pudge and I think she can deliver that!

Weight: + about 40lbs give or take a watermelon. I have reached the point where my knees are hurting now.

Anxiety : Starting to have some anxiety this week over all kinds of things, but mostly the timing. Will it be at night? Will Erik be at work? Where will Fenn Go? Will my momma get here in time .. stuff like that and although I have declined induction several times... I am thinking about re-evaluating things now. The wreck this morning and the timing issues.. also started retaining some water this week. So.. regardless of all of that I do plan to document the after pregnancy body again a.k.a. my " LEFTOVERS" like I did last time. You can see those posts here:

I remember how SHOCKED I was after having Fenn that the belly was still there when he came out! ha Whew! So I documented the details for my friends who did not know all that stuff yet either. It was very entertaining and def. got lots of hits on the www. HA

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Lots of things were announced, changes and updates.. but the new operating system ( ios7) for the iPhone/ipads is super fun. For full details and demos watch the key note but the highlights are:

- Beautiful new look! Pretty new Icons. Lots of graphic design changes that are very clean, crisp, and hip. I dig it!

- Control Center ( swipe bottom to top to access common features like brightness control) . This is LONG OVER DUE! Very exciting to me.- Camera updates.. , swiping , filters, photo organization. Lots of the changes remind me of instagram!- Siri Updates - She can do more and you can also change the voice to a man's if you prefer.

- ios in the car _ this is pretty rad! Lots of cars will be sporting iOS in the dash in 2014. Full list of companies is on the website but all the usual suspects are there. I love this feature.

- app store updates apps automatically ! Can I get a Hallelujah? All this will be available sometime in the Fall.

Monday, June 10, 2013

So my family was here this weekend! My mom has been here for a week ( God BLESS HER SOUL) to save me from being stomped to death by my energetic toddler wildebeast, and then CC and Nonie came up on Friday to dig me out from under the ever growing " To do before baby" list. They did some phenomenal work, and they cooked, and cleaned and in general totally babied me and I can't even begin to talk about how awesome that was I may or may not have hidden in the garage and cried when they left.

Anyway, Fenn is now well from this 5ths and Ear Infection PTL, and some major stuff got done around here! First up was finishing Fenn's "Big Boy Room".

This is what his big boy room looked like before we bought the house:

There was an in between phase but I can not find it on camera anywhere. So this is what it looked like when they arrived. We are having some major issues with his bed because it is an antique 3/4 bed and we have double sized mattresses on it so its way too tight and tall. Erik built a custom box spring to alleviate part of that problem.

Then they rearranged the room, painted his night stands red, got new lamps:

and hung his tent. My mom had seen these reclaimed wood art pieces in PBK and made Erik a plan to knock them off and he did an amazing job! Fenn loves ocean creatures and truth be told, I love patriotic colors so that is how he is room came to be sort of nautical. Not pictured are his PBK ocean creature sheets which he loves.He was also quite enamored with the fact that his daddy made that big whale and still talks about that a lot and reads his initials off the other piece " epps, G!!, S!!"

Next mom had Erik build these little floating shelves like the ones in PBK. I have wanted some of these forever to house all his bajillion books and also to display them because most are ocean themed, and then on holidays I put Holiday Themed books in there.

Next she had Erik make this little step stool so he can get in his bed easier. I plan to put a vinyl name sticker on there. ( this is also a PBK knockoff.)

I really wish I had some special talent for taking beautiful pictures, but alas I DO NOT. I think I may never take a decent picture in my whole life! grrrr

Thursday, June 6, 2013

YAY! We are in the home stretch now! Actual Due Date is June 27th but the baby is officially full term today. Good to know she is fully baked and ready now. I have officially reached the impatient stage and am ready for her to be here! I am ready to be able to bend over again, and hold my boy , and squish and squeeze a new born, not to mention I am so curious about what she looks like! ha

I had a doctor appointment today and he said nothing that I wanted to hear. :( Basically no dilation, 50% effacement, and head way down but baby not dropped yet. He said he had no idea when the baby would come, and that it " looks like a good size baby in there" to which I began begging him for an ultrasound. He thought that was pointless because it doesn't matter, but I quickly explained to him how it absolutely does matter that I get mentally prepared if this is another 10lb-er !! MEN!!!$%^*^^(*)_(*+Ultrasound on Monday to determine the size/weight. I do hope she is a little juicy cause I love a good fat baby!I feel like my belly pics are deceiving sometimes as to the size of this gigantor belly so I took another set showing the actual belly,so you can see how big and heavy it is. Sorry, no way to disguise that nasty belly button!

So.... some general info...Weight: 38+ lb gainBelly Measurements : 12+ inches. I have nothing to wear now. Seriously like 4 things fit at this stage but I refuse to buy anything so late in the game.Cravings : Cold drinks, especially sweet tea, and watermelon or other cold fruit. Still not wanting anything too terribly sweet like chocolate etc. Symptoms: Lots of BH and tightening in my belly. Uncomfortable if I am on my feet for much time at all, because the weight of my stomach makes my back hurt. I am HOT all the TIME. Super HOT. Pretty tired a lot too! Taking killer naps every day for about 2 hours and I sleep like a champ then, but at night I sleep terrible/very little. Due to the head on my bladder I have to TT all day/night long!Sense of smell is super sonic and causes me to be annoyed a lot.Prep Work: Pretty much done. Nursery is not organized, but I did finally get the car seat, play mat, swing, burp cloths etc. I still need to get all the bottles out and clean and make sure my pump works and stuff like that.In other news, Peebs got diagnosed with Fifths Disease and an Ear Infection this week. By the time we figured it out ,he was basically well , but this rash is nasty. It really dried out his skin and made in peel in some places. It is hard to see in pictures but it is tiny bumps 3D feeling all over his body. He also had fever, runny nose and nasty cough.

He was a very good boy for the doctor and the nurse and minded all instructions well ( as opposed to the red face screaming and kicking he normally does) so did he just outgrow that phase you ask? No... I wised up and negotiated! I told him we could go to Krispy Kreme after the doctor if he behaved. He can totally be bought with chocolate. WHY did I not think of this sooner?

Turns out that Fifths can be very dangerous for Pregnant women, especially earlier on in the pregnancy. I had no idea but my friends on instagram educated me thank goodness! Turns out I am immune to Fifths since I had it as a child so all is well! I urge all you ladies who are pregnant or plan to be come pregnant to read this girl's journey with 5ths on her blog and be educated.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Most of our May budget and time was spent toward the Master bedroom makeover. I still have lots of work to do on all bathrooms but that must wait.

I did the pinterest idea of hanging baskets above the toilets to hold linens and I love it.

(one day I will make a solid effort to take better pictures, but that day is not today while 9 mos pregnant and toddler in the tub HA)

I finally found night stands that would work for the bedroom and I love them. They are from Kirklands of all places!

The wooden woven shades came in and add some great texture to the room. I opted not to have them lined as I like all the natural light in the room. They came from Smith + Noble and I can't say enough great things about the quality and ease of installation.

Before & After shot. It is really hard to get decent pictures of this room with the right lighting.

Curtains! Whew! I tried for months to find a coral print to make curtains with, then I got all wishy washy about using coral becaise I could find NOTHING, then I kept going back to my pinterest board and noticing how many of my favorite inspiration pics were very monochromatic rooms so finally I ordered some very basic panels from Ballards with curtain rods from Brentwood Interiors. It immediately changed the look of the room and made it much softer. I am pretty happy with how it all turned out.

Fulfilling Zulily Orders and other wholesale Grizas orders. That is alot of work and I could not have done it without bubs because those boxes are too heavy and hard to transport. (this is only one days worth of orders).

I made some make shift cheapo doggy gates to keep my dog children from roaming all over the house. Works nicely. When I am more energetic I will sew a better piece of fabric that is heavier.

I made 2 printed pillows of outdoor fabric for the new sofa and had 2 of the existing pillows monogrammed. Love the way that all turned out!

I sewed some patriotic dinner napkins for our Memorial Party. The Bummer is I need to go back and make about 10 more. ... That is alot of ironing for this chick.

June is here, and that is baby month! Anna Clarke will be here soon and my wonderful family is all in town to help complete several lingering projects like finishing peebs big boy room , hanging pictures, etc. I love it when they show up and make a whirlwind of progress! It is such a great feeling even though I am not doing it myself.

I am also currently in the works of a beautiful blog makeover and I can not wait for that to be complete! It has been a few years since I did any of that and it will be awesome!